A military spouse's take on blooming where you are planted. I continue to pretend I am living on my dream farm while in reality, I live on a military base, gardening in a plot alongside a Navy flightline, with half of my homesteading supplies perpetually packed in boxes and have a habit of being overly involved in every community we live in. I'm a busy mom to 2 boys and a spouse to a Navy sailor soon nearing retirement. I love this chaotic life wouldn't trade it for anything!

right now

Jul 22, 2011

A different kind of harvest today

I made it outside for exactly 17 minutes this morning before humidity and heat chased me in. The heat index was already in the 90's at 6:30 am, ugh.

Today's harvest was a little different looking. I had the "winter tomatoes" I'll show you below, and also decided to pick a lucky few zinnias to spend their final days in the relative comfort of an 80º house!

They should cheer me up on another day with all the shutters closed up tight to ward off the 118º heat index expected.

On to the oddballs! This year I decided to try an heirloom called "Burpee Long Keeper". Touted as a "storage tomato" expected to keep through the holidays, I was skeptical, and still am. However, I was a complete idiot and planted these at the same time as all my other tomatoes, not thinking of course that I should have timed these towards the end of the season. Oh, well. I've been watching them "on the verge of ripening" for weeks now before I finally researched them - indeed they will not ripen on the vine, but should be harvested when they are a yellowish color, stored away and will ripen gradually over the next few months. Really? In this humidity I am not hopeful since I don't have a basement to store them in. Although they won't come close to a real summer tomato in taste, they are purported to be better than store bought in winter. Since we don't normally buy store bought anyways in the off-season, I thought they would be worth a try if just for pizza toppings. The vines are loaded with them now and I'm not quite sure what's going to happen here, it's only July!

I put them in cardboard flats and stowed them away in my new curtained "pantry", more on that project later...

Stored right next to my kitchen prep table where I do everything, so if they go bad, I'll surely notice! If these don't work for storing in my climate, I'll offer the rest of my seeds to someone who can store them in a proper environment like a basement or cool pantry - stay tuned to see what happens!

Melissa, I am so bad at remembering to pick flowers for the INSIDE!***Judy, but these aren't "real" tomatoes, they are freaky tomatoes LOL***Jane, you have a cellar! I think I'll be sending you some of these seeds this fall if they taste halfway good!

Erin, I think just about ANYTHING would taste better than a store bought. I'm like you-I won't buy (buy???) tomatoes off season. So not worth it. But this might be a neat alternative. I'll be watching the results with interest!Have a great weekend! And oh my gosh, sorry about MORE HEAT

I'm also interested in your tomato experiment. Yeah, no use buying expensive off season tomatoes that taste like paste- ack.Your flowers look lovely and I love the vase!It's cooler and rainy here this morning (Thank heavens!!) but it's still supposed to get up into the 90's this afternoon. All that rain will make it extra humid. hooray....Judy

Sue, I hope they work out! I'll definitely post results, and I'm sure in your climate they would last longer than here, we can't even store potatoes anywhere but the fridge so I have to boy them :(***Judy, I'd love some rain, watering in this heat even in the early hours is more than I can bear. A friend brought over some flowers from her flower farm in that jar & trim on evening and I just loved the look so much, I use that one exclusively! Although if I pick more I'll have to use some of my fabric stash for lack of burlap, but either way it's my favorite look!

Is it specifically recommended that your Burpee Long Keepers be stored in a cool, root cellar type environment? Could you at least get them in the bottom of a closet instead of in the hot kitchen? Or maybe a shut-up closet would be even warmer. Just a thought.

Mama Pea, I don't have any closets, sadly. That's why space is such a premium here - I don't even have a "coat closet" or hallway closet! My kitchen is actually pretty cool since there is an A/C vent right above my new pantry thingie and it is so open to the rest of the house, there is a lot of air flow through there. We'll see!

I tried those storage tomatoes last year. I even have a basement to store them in....and guess what? They were a complete failure! They never ripened past the color yours are now and eventually all of them rotted. Any spot on them rotted first. Granny had suggested that I should have dipped them in a bleach and water solution first, let them dry and then store them. Let us know how you make out.

I've grown Burpee "long-keeper" and "winter red" before and they've always worked for me. This year I think I've planted the long-keepers. However, I plant these storage tomatoes in late June or early July, and then harvest them in cool weather in early to mid October. Then, I leave them on the ping pong table in the garage (a very cool space in winter) to ripen. It will be interesting to see how your do!

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WHAT'S MY STORY?

Welcome! I'm a native Minnesota girl, Mom, Navy Veteran as well as a Navy spouse for the past 15 years. I am also a Certified Master Gardener that got the rug pulled out from under me 2 years ago... we transferred from a Virginia home with a huge garden into government quarters with a concrete back yard at our current duty station. Even when I can't garden, I'm dreaming of it. When I'm not getting dirty in the garden, I quilt, organize things, make lists, make more lists, go sailing and volunteer with the high school sailing team my kids are on. Only a couple more years until military retirement, we need a plan!

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Why the blog name?

Military life likes to throw wrenches into plans. Too many years of thinking "I'll start a garden someday"… someday with a bigger house, a nicer yard, climate, etc, etc - I just decided to DO IT and and worry about the logistics later! We are living the oxymoron of homesteading for the mobile military family and pulling it off the best we can. Follow our adventures as we carry our homestead wherever we go!